CHRISTIANITY BY REFLEX (3)

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How can you make your faith a vibrant, living part of your daily existence?  Be faithful to your church, even if it isn’t perfect and its leadership isn’t unerring.  Realize your church can never do its job if you are doing nothing but tearing it apart by a host of ongoing complaints.

Another story to make my point.  A minister had had a car for many years and finally it began to break down.  He simply didn’t have the mechanical knowledge to repair it, nor did he feel he could afford to have it worked on, so he sold it to a young mechanical genius in high school.

The young man was ecstatic.  “I will make it as good as new.  Thank you for the opportunity.”

And so he began to work on the car.  Month after month when the minister would pass by his house, he would see the garage door open and the young man diligently working away.  Over a year had past and he continued to work on the car to make it perfect before he drove it. 

Two years passed and a third year was about to become a reality and still the car was not being driven.

Shaking his head, the minister muttered to himself, “I know that ole car wasn’t perfect and that it needed a lot of repair, but mechanical genius or not he seems to have forgotten that cars are for going places and getting things done.”

The church…your faith…they are for going places and getting things done.  Never forget it. 

SIXTY PLUS AND NIOT HOLDING (SERIES)/ WHAT DO YOU when fear comes to call?

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I almost drowned once. It is a terrifying experience. One gets very used to breathing. I had taught swimming in summer camp. Passed the Red Cross Life Saving course. Water-skied 50 miles an hour. Now I found I could not even stand to have the water flow over my face when I took a shower.  

So I had two choices. Give in to my fear or fight it.

I fought it. Stuck my head in a few inches of water in a basin for five seconds, then ten and finally a minute. I kept working on my private demon until one day, six month later, I was behind a ski boat with ski rope in hand. I was filled with panic, not just fear. I skied anyway. I fell and did not drown. I began to overcome the anxiety.

I refused to have a love affair with fear that could have become a permanent downer. Did I completely conquer my fear? No. Was I better off than if I had given in? Definitely.

----- ------ ---------- A number of years ago two scientists conducted an experiment with a sheep. They tied a piece of wire around the leg of a normal sheep in the midst of other sheep. Then at regular intervals they would send an electric shock through the wire making the leg twitch. The sheep’s behavior remained normal. He ate well, slept well, acted quite nicely, twitching appendage and all. Then the scientists added another factor.

They began to ring a bell ten seconds before they administered the shock. Within a very short period of time the sheep began to demonstrate all the symptoms of severe anxiety neurosis. His eating habits went from bad to worse. He couldn't sleep. He took to avoiding the other sheep. He became highly nervous and agitated.

It is the same with all the people who every day promise themselves it is going to be a bad day, and then work very hard at making their prophecy come true.

 “WHICH IS BETTER TO BE?  A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

 

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

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DEATH BY ENVY (2nd in Series)

 

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In the novel “The Brothers Karamzov” there is an elderly monk named Zossmia.

He is known throughout the land for his holiness and sainthood, and hundreds journey to him for help and guidance.

Yet, because of this, he is not always loved.

Lesser men resent his popularity and envy the

 adulation he receives from the people.  Therefore, they constantly ask, as if it were not so, “Why do they think him so saintly?”

Let me quote for you again the words of the opening scripture to these thoughts.  And remember, these words were written by the Apostle Paul to the people of that ancient parish in Galatia.

“Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

It was a letter to a people in turmoil.

Christ, had, within their own generation, preached and lived a holy love.

Yet now they were tearing these teachings into unholy pieces.  With envy, anger, pride and idolatry they were making a mockery of what Jesus had taught.

And Paul’s words to them went straight to the point, let me quote them again, “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Of course, his words went over like a lead balloon.

The liberals and the conservatives of that day were at each others throats.

Both sides were blessed with love of liberty, but neither side was willing to give it to the other.

They treated non-essentials as a matter of life and death.

One side argued for the spiritually irrelevant custom of fasting; the other side made long-winded debates about special dates and seasons.

They fought over Sabbath days and servants, old customs and new innovations.

Instead of living together as Christians, they fought like pagans.

When Envy got tired, Pride took over.

When Pride grew weary, Envy stood ready to take up the cudgel again.

Into the midst of all this foolishness, stepped the Apostle Paul saying in a sense.  Hope, love,

faith, these are what count.

If you’ve got all that energy to burn, don’t waste it arguing among yourselves.

 

Go out and argue for God among the pagans.

But envy answered back.  I am petty and I major in pout.  I will not change.  I cannot change…and yes, I even envy those who can change and do. But when I weep, I want the whole world to weep with me.

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE?  A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

 

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

http://www.speakerneil.com/

V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

http://www.magnuspress.com/OurProducts2.html 

 

 

 

 

CHRISTIANITY BY REFLEX (2nd in series) THE VALLEY OF INDECISION

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What we really want is to have good memories from even our lesser moments of bad or indifferent living. 

I’m sure we all have, and more than once, been guilty of rewriting what really happened in our lives.

There are a host of folk who take up homesteads in the valley of indecision, water their flock at the river of procrastination, build their fences with wood from the forest of false promises, get their seeds from the market of the devil and then wonder why, when the harvest of memories is gleaned, it is so full of hell.

How to avoid this? 

Well…first, don’t treat your faith like a sundial!  To understand that statement, let me share another story.

A group of American young people, having learned of a tribe that were quite primitive in their way of living and looking at life, wanted to help bring them into this century. 

These people had little concept of time, other than night and day, so the eager youths thought that if they could just get the concept of hours over to them, they might become more industrious and improve their lifestyle.  And after much discussion, they decided to send a sundial, for you see a modern clock would require electricity and there was none, and batteries would soon lose their power, and even an old fashioned spring-wound clock would soon get rusty in their climate.

When the sundial arrived the natives were elated.

 

They beat their drums and danced with glee. 

 And then one of them made a suggestion.  “Let us build an altar to place it on that raised pedestal that we might show respect for this present.”  So they did. 

 And daily they treated the sundial with ever growing veneration.

Then they decided that it needed proper protection from the weather and as the sides of hut they were building grew taller and taller, less and less sun could make its way to their sundial. 

And when they were finally finished, the roof totally blocked out the sun.  But there, properly resting upon its throne, the sun dial was daily worshipped.

Of course, the sundial no longer worked.

And so it is back to my statement before this story.  

Don’t treat your faith like a sundial.

  Don’t cover it up with honor and respect while never taking it out into the stream of life. 

Take it out where it will be tested.  Give it the chance to grow in the midst of adversity.  Shelter it and it will die or at the very least become a strangled, stringent shadow of what it otherwise might be.

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE?  A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

 

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

 

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

http://www.speakerneil.com/

V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

http://www.magnuspress.com/OurProducts2.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

60 PLUS AND NOT HOLDING/A Mildew On The Mind

In seeking to name a real problem, yes...give it a name and recognize it...but don't frame it.

By way of example you may have had an accident or a heart attack and worked your way back to only 80% of your former abilities.  There is certainly no harm in plugging away at the last 20% unless you let it over-shadow your 80% success. But if eventually you learn you have come as far as you can, learn to live with...and picture a worst senario.

Our mind can be called the secretary to our soul. It records if faith or doubt, courage or cowardice, persistence or pessisimism resides there.  If we have done othing bur weep, worry and whine we have been busy sending the wrong messages. 

If we have been like children who blame chairs when they fall down or apple trees for rotten apples, we have been refusing responsibility.  If we constantly curse God or or fellow man or nature for our misfortunes, we are spinning negative wheels that will be increasingly mired and muddy.

We have all met people who act as if they had fried misery for breakfast and washed it down with a cup of comlaint.  How much better for everyone if they had cultivated an emotioaonally beutiful flower garden rather than row after row of stinkweeds.

Pure and simle, whether silver linings or nightmares are harvested in time of stress largely depends on which has been planted.

Worry can so easily get, and keep a grip on our souls.  We have to work at being glad of life because itves us the change to loe and to work and to play, and to look up at the stars and be filed with wonder at what is beyond (to paraphrase Henry Van Dyke)

It is common sense to suggest that bad thoughts, like concrete, free flowing through our minds soon harden.

What do do?  Certainly as a part of positives,find a listening ear and talk a problem through.  

I remember one individual i once counseled saying, "I just want to cry and not talk about my roblem.  It makes me feel better."

But after awhile it doesn't. Past a certain constant, prolonged weeping sends the soul the message that everything is out of control.

DEATH BY ENVY

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Galatians 5:26

Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

It wasn’t until the late 16^th century that the egregious sins we humans are prone to commit most often were compiled into a list. Pope Gregory the Great was the author.  And envy is certainly one of the worst of these listed Seven Deadly Sins.

Proverbs 14:30 explains envy this way.  “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” 

It is a double-edged sin for it works its evil against both self and one’s fellowman. And the wound it makes can be deadly.

 They were two shopkeepers and they were bitter rivals.  Each day they looked at their competitor’s store across the street and thought selfish, envious thoughts.

They even went so far as to actually hire men to keep track of how many customers the other had each day.  

And at day’s end, would measure their own success by whether they had the larger number of customers. 

And each night, the loser could not sleep.

Then one night, an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers and said, “I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your

St. Thomas Aquinas points out that it is the exact opposite of mercy.

Indeed, it is self-love fueled by fear, insecurity, and jealousy for envy cannot bear to see others prosper.   

It makes some ministers lost and ineffective when they are not able to handle the fact they have not been called to larger churches.

It makes congregational members hurt and angry when they think someone else is receiving

more attention.

It makes choir members act blindly and foolishly when they cannot sing solos.

Now, this is not true of all choir members, or all ministers or all congregational members, but within the sanctuary of the Lord, it is true more often than it should be.

This green-eyed monster wants the object of its envy to start living in a world of minus while it lives in a world of plus. 

When you come right down to it, envy really is quite evil, taking otherwise good Christians and making them not so very good at all.

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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

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CHRISTIANITY BY REFLEX (1st in series)

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Are your Christian beliefs and actions only reflex motions with no great thought or feeling behind them? 

Or, you could look at it another way.  Are your Christian beliefs and actions so ingrained that they are part and parcel of who you are, therefore reflex actions. 

Inspired by C.S. Lewis’ book, Screwtape Letters, I have expanded a conversation that takes place between two devils.  One is the big devil himself and because it is not easy being a devil, what with all the devilish little nuances always in play, he says with a malicious smile written across his face, “Little devil, I want to be sure you understand how important it is that you allow your victims to think great thoughts, espouse noble ideas, and even attend church regularly, but never actually do anything.

“Feeling sentimental about God will never hurt our cause.  It is only when a person begins to act on good thoughts that we are in danger.”

A knowing look passes across the countenance of the little devil and dancing up and down he shouts with glee, “I understand, Master.  I understand!”

“And be sure,” added the Big Devil, “that you never allow a Christian to have the Christian ethic so ingrained he has no choice but to do what is right.  I mean, can you imagine what it would do if politicians and businessmen began to tell the truth and admit mistakes and act in a redemptive manner.  Why…we could lose control of the world overnight.  Can’t let that happen.”

Too many of us, and indeed all of us at some time or other, are like the little boy who prayed, “Lord, make me a good boy, but you don’t have to be in too big of a hurry about it.”

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE?  A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS ONE MAN

DRAMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM

LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

 

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

 

 

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

http://www.speakerneil.com/

V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

http://www.magnuspress.com/OurProducts2.html